Former two division world champion David Haye believes Anthony Joshua will make the necessary adjustments to get revenge on Oleksandr Usyk in their upcoming rematch.
Back in September of last year, Usyk outboxed Joshua over twelve rounds to capture the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO heavyweight titles.
Joshua exercised an immediate rematch clause – with a second fight being targeted to take place on a date in June or July.
There were many observers who felt Joshua had implemented the wrong strategy in the fight with Usyk. He tried to outbox the better boxer and failed.
The second time around, Haye expects Joshua to use his size advantage and do whatever is necessary to reclaim the heavyweight straps. Haye admits that he was shocked when Joshua failed to use his physical advantages in the loss.
“I believed that Joshua was going to beat Usyk. I just thought physically, he was too big, too imposing, punched too hard and when they got in close, he would just be able to rough him up,” Haye told Talk Sport.
“He did the polar opposite to all of the things I thought he needed to do to win. I think he’s going to do what he should’ve done in the first fight and that’s be the bigger man, push the rules to the limit, you need to be warned by the referee for infringing some of the rules and while doing that, do some damage inside.
“If he is, he wins, but if he does the same thing again and tries to have a boxing match, he loses, but I don’t think he’s going to make the same mistake twice.”